Waitress Has Her Day In The Sun

She, in fact, may be among the best, says one of the nation's leading service industry experts.

Griffith's work is neither glamorous, prestigious nor high-paying. But the job offers its own rewards, and that fact alone gives the 46-year-old Kimberly woman a sense of pride.

For 14 years she has served as a waitress at the Orchard Cafe in downtown Appleton's Paper Valley Hotel.

"You could call me a perfectionist . . . to a fault sometimes," she says with a laugh. "I'll panic if I see a person's water glass half full. That (drive) can't be good for me. It probably makes me a candidate for a heart attack.

"I was raised that when you go to work, you give it your all and your employer anticipates your best."

Her attitude so impressed author Leonard L. Berry, a nationally known service guru, that he profiled Griffith as a case study in his recently released book, "Discovering the Soul of Service."

"She is superb," he writes. "Appreciated by her first-time customers, famous with her regular customers, revered by co-workers."

The praise is "humbling," Griffith says.

"There are a lot of people out there who work hard at their jobs," she says. "Sometimes (the recognition) makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm not any better than anybody else. A lot of people around here, and everywhere, work hard, and they don't get credit for what they do in the world.

The recognition comes at a tumultuous time for the hotel in which she works: The Paper Valley and sister facility The Valley Inn in Neenah are completing their first year under the ownership of Montclair Hotel Investors Inc. of Bloomingdale, Ill.

Like her co-workers, Griffith was stunned by Bergstrom Corp.'s decision in November 1997 to sell the hotels, a deal that included Oshkosh's Pioneer Inn & Marina.

"I was apprehensive. Not of losing my job, but of what was going to change for benefits and wages, of course," she says.

While pay rates were not slashed (in some cases, they were bolstered), some hourly employees, including Griffith, did not see a raise this year.

Nonetheless, the veteran sums up her feelings by suggesting, "So far, so good.

"These are all things that come with a new company," Griffith says. "You have to learn to live with them. I want to give everybody a chance. I don't want to pre-judge them. They've been nice people and I want a chance to work for them. I can learn new things and change isn't always bad.

"They can bring new things to us, and we have to be open-minded about that. But our hope -- those of us who have been here a while -- is that they will listen to us too. We know what works. Just give us some input into the process. It could work beautifully and things might turn out even better."

For instance, Montclair launched an "Employee of the Month" award this year, and Griffith was the first staff member to garner the recognition and $50 award.

"That was a nice morale booster and something new," she says.

If anything sticks in her craw, Griffith says, it's customers who pre-judge the hotel just because of the ownership change.

When they heard about the sale, "there was a lot of apprehension for our regular customers," Griffith says. "They thought, `Oh gosh, prices will go sky-high. Will we lose the girls who've waited on us forever?' "

Even price hikes that went into effect during the Bergstrom era were attributed to the new owners, she says.

"We still have people who have a complaint and unfairly say, `It must be because of Montclair,' " she says. "It must be difficult to constantly hear, `Bergstrom did this. And Bergstrom did that.' That has got to get tiring."

Despite previous careers as an executive secretary at Thilmany Paper and as the owner of a drive-in restaurant, Griffith says she is happiest in her current position.

The relationship with Montclair is like a person with "a new spouse," she says.

"We're still getting to know them," she says. "We all have to learn. There are changes and we all have to make them together. We should hang in there.

"I've got a feeling it's going to be quite fine when it all shakes out."